Chocolate and Cherries
by preposterousnotion
Summary: One-shot Puckleberry fluff. "They do go together perfectly… I wonder how long it took for someone to figure that out?"


Cherries and Chocolate

Disclaimer: I do not own the characters from glee. I really don't.

AN: Short one-shot Puckleberry fluff. Because there can never be enough Puckleberry fluff in this fandom.

Bree.

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><p>"How about soaps?" Rachel had suggested, idly twirling her hair in her fingertips and flittering the eyelashes of huge doe eyes up at him.<p>

He'd given some kind of non-committal grunt in reply, shifting her slightly to wrap his arm more comfortably around her.

It was summer, nearly his ma's birthday, just the last few days before school was back in.

The last few days of enjoying them just being 'Rachel' and 'Noah', before their peers stuck some horribly garish label on them that couldn't quite capture what they'd become.

"She'll think I'm trying to tell her something", he muttered. "That she smells or something".

Rachel had made a sigh of exasperation.

"I'm just trying to help", she'd said grumpily.

"Yeah well, at least it's better than your last suggestion, or whatever".

"Who doesn't want the Barbra Streisand collector's edition collection?" Rachel asked indignantly.

"Most people", he'd shot straight back, and laughed as she huffed.

Their easy banter was more appealing than his misspent hours of sexting.

He hadn't quite managed to tell her that yet.

"Maybe I'll just buy her chocolates like last year", he shrugged, "Or those expensive biscuits from that bakery that's so pink every time I go there I have to keep checking I've still got my vegetables".

She scoffed, in that 'oh-Noah-you-are-so-crude-but-I-happen-to-find-it-admittedly-amusing-and-sometimes-even-attractive' way she had perfected over the course of their lazy summer afternoons.

They'd mostly ended up at one another's houses, with extravagant suggestions of things to do, which quickly bubbled down to just laying in the sun on the side of the Berry's pool, or on the grass in the park, or on the bonnet of his truck under the stars.

It was just… effortless.

"_Or_…"

She smiled like she had a plan.

It still scared him a little.

"You could _make_ her cookies! She'll love it! Parents always prefer something made to something bought!"

She was so enthusiastic he couldn't help but smile a little.

She tugged at his arm, untwining herself from his embrace to stand up.

"Where you goin'?"

He hadn't meant it to sound so anxious.

"I'm going to teach you my secret recipe", she beamed, her smile lighting him up more than the sun ever could. "C'mon".

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><p>Hence why they were now in the Berry's kitchen, and she'd most likely just told him to do something, but he hadn't heard her, because she looked so damn adorable in her red and white stripy apron, twirling round everywhere and spouting off instructions like she was some sort of interactive cookbook.<p>

"Noah?"

"Hmmm?"

There was a triangle of smooth tanned skin framed by the bow at the back of the apron, revealed by her top riding up, and it was way too distracting for its simplicity.

"Cherries or chocolate?"

He thought for a moment, forcing his eyes to her face, trying not to wonder if her shiny lipgloss tasted like cherries today, or would it be papaya flavour, like yesterday…

Buying her that set of fruit lipglosses had made being dragged around _all_ the shoe shops totally worth it.

"Both?"

She laughed.

"What? Is that not good? I thought cherries and chocolate went together?"

She stopped suddenly, looking up at him through her eyelashes and biting her lip in a combination that never failed to draw his attention.

"That's true", she said quietly. "They do go together perfectly… I wonder how long it took for someone to figure that out?"

He raised an eyebrow, his hand reaching out of its own accord to find hers, finding instead the curve of her hip and settling warmly there.

"Too long I'm sure," he returned, and something flared up in her eyes.

And every time it did, it flared for longer.

"Okay so we just need to press the pieces of chocolate and the cherries into the cookie shapes, and then they can go in the oven."

"Okay," he echoed, not moving his cupped hand so that when she twisted round to the sideboard, he could grasp her other hip.

He reached round her to grab a handful of broken chocolate, imitating her as she gently pushed them into the tray of doughy cookies.

He stayed like that, long after the bowl of cherries and chocolate were gone, his steady breathing warm on the back of her neck.

"Is everything okay?" Rachel asked quietly.

It was so new to them, the closeness, the _intimacy_.

There was no way of telling how it had come to be, just that it had, and neither were trying to prevent it going further.

It would, in time, as naturally and simply as everything had already gradually built up.

"I… I think your bow is coming undone".

His free hand, the one not lightly caressing her hip, skirted hesitant fingertips over her lower back.

"Can I..?"

He felt her blush.

He wasn't aware of how potently his newly learned tentativeness warmed her.

"Yeah", she breathed. "Yeah please".

His fingers danced over her soft skin, his breath hitching as her head dropped ever so slightly forward at the contact.

Every day he spent with Rachel tested him, increasingly challenging him to keep control, to prolong the intensity of tiny touches and languorous kisses.

He had long decided that he was just going to let the wind take them.

He stroked and drew lazy patterns, pushing up the hem of her top, before reluctantly tightening the bow of her apron.

"So how long do I have to wait 'til I can nick one?" He asked, his voice a little gruff.

"15 minutes… here".

She turned to face him, her tongue peeking out from behind her teeth as she held a single glacé cherry up between her thumb and forefinger.

He briefly wondered where she had been hiding that about her tiny person, but deciding he didn't really care if her hand continued to raise to his mouth.

He swiped his tongue over dry lips.

Neither spoke, and the atmosphere was electric as he pushed out his tongue to daintily lick the cherry.

She gave an indistinct humming noise of appreciation.

With the flash of a wicked grin, he caught her wrist in a strong grasp, letting his heavy eyelids flutter closed as he wetly licked again, deliberately over enthusiastically, wetting the tips of her finger and thumb.

He pulled away just to watch for a brief moment the lust dance in her eyes, before slowly closing his mouth around the cherry and sucking her finger as he finally claimed her proffered sweet.

He had barely swallowed before her hands came up to clasp either side of his head, forcing his lips down to collide with hers.

His whole body sighed with contentedness, kissing her lazily, melting into her pliant lips.

"You taste like chocolate", he murmured, his eyes smouldering.

"Chef's perks", she grinned, her hands sliding caressingly down to his neck.

"_You_ taste like cherries".

He smiled against her lips, goading them apart with a languid stroke of his tongue, and combining their flavours once more.

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><p>Please review :)<p> 


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